Effects of mismatches on DNA as an isothermal assembly and disassembly tool

Recently, our group developed an approach to drive disassembly of DNA-linked structures at a fixed temperature by adding soluble secondary targets that competitively displace the shorter, original hybridization partners. Here, instead of relying solely on base length differences between primary and secondary targets to drive isothermal disassembly, we introduce a single base mismatch to further weaken the DNA linkages holding colloidal particles together and promote subsequent disassembly upon the addition of perfectly-matched secondary targets.